CONCEPTUAL DESCRIPTION:This project is designed to be a gestural interface between your biological tongue and a CNC [computerized numerically controlled] tongue. This is a project exploring the tension between virtuality and tangible longing. Through building a CNC robotic tongue that mimics the action of a remote participant’s tongue in real time, we experiment at the thresholds of mediated pleasure and synthetic satisfaction of virtual experiences.

TECHNICAL DESCRIPTION:This is a fully functional robotic tongue designed to blend virtual and haptic experiences. This tongue is mounted on a custom made delta bot, and that is controlled by your tongue manipulating an ipad. In essence, it is telepresence for your tongue.

BackgroundWhile this project was conceptually conceived by me, it was built as a group effort between me and my amazingly brilliant classmates at MIT. It was inspired by the Machines That Make Project. A blog of how this machine was made, as well as a full list of collaborators can be found here.

This project is still in progress. Come back in Spring of 2016 for the unveiling of the world's first CNC tongue.